Nuvettian
Nuvettian (autonym: ?) ''is a very new language that is in the process of being discovered. The proper English pronunciation of the language is nu.ve.ti.an, not nuviʃən. Classification and Dialects Phonology Consonants Notice that IPA sounds are represented in normal text. Beneath those characters, in bold, is the standard way of representing that sound in the language's orthography. Note that nasals assimilate to their place of articulation in speech. This means it is possible, but not necessarily actually the case that a word with the cluster '-mg- and '-ng-' are phonemically contrasted but realized as the same sound. Vowels *the schwa is often the result of vowel reductions, especially word finally, though it can appear in some varieties even in stressed syllables. There is an argument for full phonemic distinction and it usually corresponds with <ä> or in other varieties Phonotactics The maximum possible syllable structure is ©©V©©. Nasals and lateral approximates may be syllabic. For example stoksni is realized stoks.ni. But stoksn ''would be pronounced stoks.ən. It is important to realize that this word is therefore not CCVCCC but CCVCC.VC. Note that all vowels in sequence form hiatus and not diphthongs. Diphthongs are formed with a vowel and an approximate. For example, ''ai is a.i, öu ɤ.u, etc. While ay ''is aj and ''öw ''would be ɤw. The following diphthongs are valid in the language: ''ay, ey, oy, uy, aw, ew, iw, ow. All other combinations of diphthongs are not found in the language. Note that these sequences may exist between syllable boundaries however. Hypothetically, the word mäyis ''would then be mæ.jis while ''mayis may be maj.is or ma.jis. Generally, in breaking up syllables, valid diphthongs are preferred to maximized onsets, so we would say the word is maj.is. Some other rules * The sound /ʔ/ can only be used intervocalically * The sounds /h/ and /ɹ/ cannot end a syllable * Affricates such as /ts/ /pf/ /tθ/ /tʃ/ etc. are all possible consonant clusters but are not considered individual phones but rather sequences of two phones. * Syllable onsets tend to move from lower to higher sonority unless the syllable starts with a s. ** Still, many clusters are not allowed such as /tl/, /tn/, etc. Writing System Grammar Nuvettian is a highly inflected language. It makes use of agglutinative suffixes for the most part as well as heavy reliance on a complex vowel gradation system (ablaut). The language makes use of postpositions, SOV word order, and adjectives follow the nouns. Nouns Nouns come in three classes: Animate, inanimate, and ephemeral. Recently, it may have become possible to class nouns as common and ephemeral. This is because in the past, inflectional morphology was distinct between all classes of nouns and markers could be found. However, now all inflectional ending are the same between the noun classes except for plurals. Plurals are formed in the same way in animate and inanimate nouns but differently for ephemeral nouns. What makes a noun ephemeral is often sensible, but not arbitrary and, therefore, which nouns are ephemeral need to be memorized. There are relatively few postpositions in the language. Most of that meaning is conveyed through case endings. The following cases exist in the language. * Ergative (Subject of a transitive verb) * Absolutive (Subject of a reflexive verb, intransitive verb, or passive voice construction) * Accusative (Object of a transitive verb) * Dative (for'', at, recipient of action or thing)'' * Genitive ('s possession, used for location in certain expressions) * Ablative (used to mean from, away, taken, outwards from a center, off of)* * Inessive (used to indicate, within, in the interior, or between)* * Ellative (indicates out of, without (all senses), beside)* * Allative (indicates on, on top of, higher)* * Adessive (indicates on)* * Perlative (across, through)* * Comitative (accompanying) * Causal (because of, due to) * Instrumental (by means of, through the use of) * Dubitive (doubt)** * Stative (used to link two nouns or a noun and an adjective) *cases marked with the asterisk indicate special cases. When these cases are used on a noun that noun undergoes the motive ablaut (see below). ** this case is rare especially now it is almost unheard of. It is mainly replaced with the appropriate form of eci "to doubt" The following table illustrates the endings for nouns in their respective cases. This table does not indicate ablauts for plural or for motive cases. Below is an example of how to use each case. We have chosen the word pa meaning water. Note that this is a vowel ending word. The word will be declined in all cases and an example sentence will be given. The role that the English phrase "the water" or "water" plays in that sentence, is the typical use of that specifical grammatical case in Nuvettian. Notice the motive ablaut which will be explained more later. Some important distinctions I would like to note. Notice the subtle differences between the allative and the adessive. Adessive case deals with surface things. Plates are on a table, leafs are floating on the water. The allative case deals with height and stacking. The boxes are on table. The plane is in the sky, the sun is above us. Things like that. These cases can be juxtaposed for emphasis or to dramatize something but this is how they are used. Notice also the use of the inessive vs. the perlative. We would say there are fish throughout the ocean and they move through the ocean so ocean would be perlative. However, a person is likely to go under the water and not move a whole lot and then come back out so we use the inessive. Note also that this is not always a perfect alignment. We may say a boat is “in” the water in English but this would not be inessive, this would translate better as adessive since the boat is really floating along the surface. A floating toy would be water.ADESSIVE ''but a diving board would be ''water.ALLATIVE. Finally note that the word for water as in bottle of water is not the same as the word for water however in the sentence he went on a walk with a bottle of water, the phrase bottle of water would be in the comitative. More specifically, bottle would be comitative and ''water ''would be genitive. Motive Ablaut Plurals Animate and inanimate used to form plurals with a circumfix. the form a(t)-(y)i was used. These days, the plural is formed with the prefix a(t)- together the motive ablaut. The form of the stem in the motive ablaut plus a(t)- is used to make the plural of both animate and inanimate nouns. Ephemeral nouns take the prefix o(m)- and do '''not use the motive ablaut form. pa ''"water, body of water" is therefore ''ape ''in the plural. '''There is no definiteness in nouns nor are there articles, however, the words ''ci "''one" and ''ekki ''"not one" ''atekki "more than not one" roughly correspond to "a" and "few" and "many"''' Some Vocabulary Some nouns in the language can be found below. Verbs Note that there is no copula verb in Nuvettian. The stative case is used to communicate this although sometimes even this is not used and other cases may be involved. The copula is implied. Syntax Lexicon Example text